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With average daily room rates at Hawaii's luxury and upscale hotels soaring, as many as 8% of travelers were driven to stay with friends or family in 2005, according to a new monthly report from Hospitality Advisors. High demand and a loss of about 6,000 hotel units prompted some of the higher prices, and the state was behind only New York in terms of room rates.

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Strategic Hotels and Resorts, which considered selling its 390-room Lincolnshire Marriott Resort in Illinois last year, has decided to hold on to the property, at least until significant capital improvements are needed. Strategic says the hotel is not a core asset, however, and that the property could change hands even before capital improvements are needed, but likely not until 2007.

Mexican officials have backed off from demands that Mexico City's Sheraton Maria Isabel Hotel be shut down, following a recent political flap where Cubans were asked to leave the hotel. A spokesman for Starwood Hotels & Resorts said the company wants "to maintain a good relationship with authorities" and a Mexico City official said building code violations that the hotel had been accused of in the wake of the incident were "practically corrected."

The Atlantis resort on the Bahamas' Paradise Island is planning a $1 billion expansion to add 75 acres to the existing 65-acre resort. The expansion will boost the resort's number of rooms from 2,317 to 3,367 by spring 2007, with a new 600-room, 21-story tower and a 450-unit condominium hotel.

With magazines obsessed with the use of numbers and lists such as the "top 10 reasons" or the "15 best ways," hoteliers can compile their own numbers to attract an editor's attention and get some good press. Resorts with spas, for example, could offer "25 reasons to get a massage," or a property undergoing a renovation could showcase a designer by promoting "100 decorating tips."

The new Westin Arlington Gateway hotel in the Washington, D.C., suburb opened Wednesday with a unique ribbon-cutting ceremony designed to emphasize the property's theme of rejuvenation. Upon entering the earth-toned lobby with mood lighting and new-age music playing, guests at the 336-room hotel are presented with warm hand towels and scented air.